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Award Ceremony Speech

The Nobel Committee
of the Norwegian Parliament has awarded this year's Peace
Prize to the Quakers, represented by their two great relief
organizations, the Friends Service Council in London and the
American Friends
Service Committee in Philadelphia.

It is now three hundred years since George Fox1 established the Society of Friends. It was
during the time of civil war in England, a period full of the
religious and political strife which led to the Protectorate
under Cromwell2 - today we would
no doubt call it a dictatorship. What then happened was what so
often happens when a political or religious movement is
successful; it lost sight of its original concern: the right to
freedom. For, having achieved power, the movement then refuses to
grant to others the things for which it has itself fought. Such
was the case with the Presbyterians and after them with the
Independents. It was not the spirit of tolerance and humanity
that emerged victorious.

George Fox and many of his followers were to experience this
during the ensuing years, but they did not take up the fight by
arming, as men customarily do. They went their way quietly
because they were opposed to all forms of violence. They believed
that spiritual weapons would prevail in the long run - a belief
born of inward experience. They emphasized life itself rather
than its forms because forms, theories, and dogmas have never
been of importance to them. They have therefore from the very
beginning been a community without fixed organization. This has
given them an inner strength and a freer view of mankind, a
greater tolerance toward others than is found in most organized
religious communities.

The Quaker movement originated in England, but soon afterwards in
1656, the Quakers found their way to America where they were not
at first welcomed. In spite of persecution, however, they stood
fast and became firmly established during the last quarter of the
century. Everyone has heard of the Quaker, William Penn3, who founded Philadelphia and the colony of
Pennsylvania. Around 1700 there were already fifty to sixty
thousand Quakers in America and about the same number in
England.

Since then the Quakers have lived their own lives, many of them
having to suffer for their beliefs. Much has changed during these
three hundred years. Outward customs, such as the dress adopted
by the early Quakers, have been discarded, and the Friends
themselves now live in a society which is outwardly quite
different from that of the seventeenth century. But the people
around them are the same, and what has to be conquered within man
himself is no less formidable.

The Society of Friends has never had many members, scarcely more
than 200,000 in the entire world, the majority living in the
United States and in England. But it is not the number that
matters. What counts more is their inner strength and their
deeds.

If we study the history of the Quakers, we cannot but admire the
strength they have acquired through their faith and through their
efforts to live up to that faith in their daily life. They have
always been opposed to violence in any form, and many considered
their refusal to take part in wars the most important tenet of
their religion. But it is not quite so simple. It is certainly
true that the Declaration of 1660 states: «We utterly deny
all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons,
for any end and under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our
testimony to the whole world.» But that goes much further
than a refusal to take part in war. It leads to this: it is
better to suffer injustice than to commit injustice. It is from
within man himself that victory must in the end be gained.

It may be said, without doing injustice to anyone, that the
Quakers have at times been more interested in themselves and in
their inner life than in the community in which they lived. There
was, as one of their own historians has said, something passive
about their work: they preferred to be counted among the silent
in the land. But no one can fulfill his mission in this life by
wanting to belong only to the silent ones and to live his own
life isolated from others.

Nor was this attitude true of the Quakers. They too went out
among men, not to convert them, but to take an active part with
them in the life of the community and, even more, to offer their
help to those who needed it and to let their good deeds speak for
themselves in appealing for mutual understanding.

Here I can only mention some scattered examples which illustrate
such activity. The Quakers took part in creating the first peace
organization in 1810 and since then have participated in all
active peace movements. I would mention Elizabeth Fry
4, John Woolman5, and other Quakers active in the fight
against slavery and in the struggle for social justice. I would
mention the liberal idealist John Bright6, his forty-year fight against the principles
of war and for the principles of peace, his opposition to the
Crimean War7, and his struggle
against Palmerston's8 policies.
Many other examples could be mentioned to show how their active
participation in community work, in politics if you prefer,
increased during the nineteenth century.

Yet it is not this side of their activities - the active
political side - which places the Quakers in a unique position.
It is through silent assistance from the nameless to the nameless
that they have worked to promote the fraternity between nations
cited in the will of Alfred Nobel. Their work
began in the prisons. We heard about them from our seamen who
spent long years in prison during the Napoleonic
Wars9. We met them once again
during the Irish famine of 1846-1847. When English naval units
bombarded the Finnish coast during the Crimean War10, the Quakers hurried there to heal the
wounds of war, and we found them again in France after the
ravages of the 1870-1871 war11.

When the First World War broke out, the Quakers were once more to
learn what it was to suffer for their faith. They refused to
carry arms, and many of them were thrown into prison, where they
were often treated worse than criminals. But it is not this that
we shall remember longest. We who have closely observed the
events of the First World War and of the inter-war period will
probably remember most vividly the accounts of the work they did
to relieve the distress caused by the war. As early as 1914, the
English Quakers started preparation for relief action. They began
their work in the Marne district in France and, whenever they
could, they went to the very places where the war had raged. They
worked in this way all through the war and when it ended were
confronted by still greater tasks. For then, as now, hunger and
sickness followed in the wake of the war. Who does not recall the
years of famine in Russia in 1920-1921 and Nansen's appeal to mankind for help? Who
does not recall the misery among the children in Vienna which
lasted for years on end? In the midst of the work everywhere were
the Quakers. It was the Friends Service Committee which, at
Hoover's12 request, took on the mighty task
of obtaining food for sick and undernourished children in
Germany. Their relief corps worked in Poland and Serbia,
continued to work in France, and later during the civil war in
Spain13 rendered aid on both
sides of the front.

Through their work, the Quakers won the confidence of all, for
both governments and people knew that their only purpose was to
help. They did not thrust themselves upon people to win them to
their faith. They drew no distinction between friend and foe. One
expression of this confidence was the donation of considerable
funds to the Quakers by others. The funds which the Quakers could
have raised among themselves would not have amounted to much
since most of them are people of modest means.

During the period between the wars their social work also
increased in scope. Although, in one sense, nothing new emerged,
the work assumed a form different from that of the wartime
activity because of the nature of the problems themselves.
Constructive work received more emphasis, education and teaching
played a greater part, and there were now more opportunities of
making personal contact with people than there had been during a
time when the one necessity seemed to be to supply food and
clothing. The success achieved among the coal miners in West
Virginia provides an impressive example of this work. The Quakers
solved the housing problems, provided new work for the
unemployed, created a new little community. In the words of one
of their members, they succeeded in restoring self-respect and
confidence in life to men for whom existence had become devoid of
hope. This is but one example among many.

The Second World War did not strike the Quakers personally in the
same way as did that of 1914. Both in England and in the U.S.A.
the conscription laws allowed the Quakers to undertake relief
work instead of performing military service; so they were neither
cast into prison nor persecuted because of their unwillingness to
go to war. In this war there were, moreover, Quakers who did not
refuse to take an active part in the war, although they were few
compared with those who chose to help the victims of war. When
war came, the first task which confronted them was to help the
refugees. But the difficulties were great because the frontiers
of many countries were soon closed. The greater part of Europe
was rapidly occupied by the Germans, and the United States
remained neutral for only a short time. Most of the countries
occupied by the Germans were closed to the Quakers. In Poland, it
is true, they were given permission to help, but only on
condition that the Germans themselves should choose who was to be
helped, a condition which the Quakers could not accept.
Nevertheless, they worked where they could, first undertaking
welfare work in England and after that, behind the front in many
countries of Europe and Asia, and even in America. For when
America joined the war, the whole Japanese-American population,
numbering 112,000 in all, of whom 80,000 were American citizens,
was evacuated from the West Coast. The Quakers went to their
assistance, as well as opposed the prevailing anti-Japanese
feeling from which these people suffered.

Now, with the war over, the need for help is greater than ever.
This is true not only in Europe, but also and to the same degree
in large areas of Asia. The problems are becoming more and more
overwhelming - the prisoners who were released from concentration
camps in 1945, all those who had to be repatriated from forced
labor or POW camps in enemy countries, all the displaced persons
who have no country to which they can return, all the homeless in
their own countries, all the orphans, the hungry, the starving!
The problem is not merely one of providing food and clothing, it
is one of bringing people back to life and work, of restoring
their self-respect and their faith and confidence in the future.
Once again, the Quakers are active everywhere. As soon as a
country has been reopened they have been on the spot, in Europe
and in Asia, among countrymen and friends as well as among former
enemies, in France and in Germany, in India and in Japan. It is
not easy to assess the extent of their contribution. It is not
something that can be measured in terms of money alone, but
perhaps some indication of it may be given by the fact that the
American Committee's budget for last year was forty-six million
Norwegian kroner. And this is only the sum which the American
Committee has had at its disposal. Quakers in all countries have
also taken a personal and active part in the work of other relief
organizations. They have, for instance, assisted in the work of
UNRRA14 in a number of places
such as Vienna and Greece.

Today the Quakers are engaged in work that will continue for many
years to come. But to examine in closer detail the individual
relief schemes would not give us any deeper insight into its
significance. For it is not in the extent of their work or in its
practical form that the Quakers have given most to the people
they have met. It is in the spirit in which this work is
performed. «We weren't sent out to make converts», a
young Quaker says: «we've come out for a definite purpose,
to build up in a spirit of love what has been destroyed in a
spirit of hatred. We're not missionaries. We can't tell if even
one person will be converted to Quakerism. Things like that don't
happen in a hurry. When our work is finished it doesn't mean that
our influence dies with it. We have not come out to show the
world how wonderful we are. No, the thing that seems most
important is the fact that while the world is waging a war in the
name of Christ, we can bind up the wounds of war in the name of
Christ. Religion means very little until it is translated into
positive action.»15

This is the message of good deeds, the message that men can find
each other in spite of war, in spite of differences in race. Is
it not here that we have the hope of laying foundations for peace
among nations, of building it up in man himself so that the
settling of disputes by force becomes impossible? All of us know
that we have not yet traveled far along this road. And yet - when
we witness today the great willingness to help those who have
suffered, a generosity unknown before the war and often greatest
among those who have least, can we not hope that there is
something in the heart of man on which we can build, that we can
one day reach our goal if only it be possible to make contact
with people in all lands?

The Quakers have shown us that it is possible to translate into
action what lies deep in the hearts of many: compassion for
others and the desire to help them - that rich expression of the
sympathy between all men, regardless of nationality or race,
which, transformed into deeds, must form the basis for lasting
peace. For this reason alone the Quakers deserve to receive the
Nobel Peace Prize today.

But they have given us something more: they have shown us the
strength to be derived from faith in the victory of the spirit
over force. And this brings to mind two verses from one of Arnulf
Överland's16 poems which
helped so many of us during the war. I know of no better
salute:

The unarmed only
can draw on sources eternal.
The spirit alone gives victory.

* Mr. Jahn,
also at this time director of the Bank of Norway, delivered this
speech on December 10, 1947, in the Auditorium of the University of
Oslo. At its conclusion he gave the Nobel diplomas and medals
to Miss Margaret A. Backhouse, representing the Friends service
Council, and Prof. Henry J. Cadbury, representing the American
Friends Service Committee. Both representatives of these two
Society of Friends organizations, which shared the prize,
responded with brief speeches of acceptance. The translation of
Mr. Jahn's speech is based on the Norwegian text in Les Prix
Nobel en 1947, which also carries a French translation.

8. Henry John Temple Palmerston
(1784-1865), English statesman; in office almost continuously
from 1809 to 1865 as secretary of war, foreign secretary, home
secretary, or prime minister.

9. Napoleonic Wars:
1803-1815.

10. Finland was a Russian grand
duchy at the time of the Crimean War.

11. The Franco-Prussian war
(July 19, 1870-January 28, 1871).

12. Herbert Hoover (1874-1964),
president of the U. S. (1929-1933); during and after World War I
headed U. S. food administration and war relief
commissions.

13. Spanish Civil War
(1936-1939).

14. The United Nations Relief
and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was established in 1943
to aid areas freed from the Axis powers; it was discontinued in
Europe in 1947 and its work taken over by the FAO and the IRO.

15. The translation of this
passage is taken from The Friends' Quarterly (April, 1948)
75.